The Disastrous War against Terrorism: Violence versus Enlightenment

In combating international terrorism, it is important to observe some basic principles, such as that international law must be complied with, care should be taken that one does not proceed in such a way that future terrorists are recruited, and one does not oneself become a terrorist. Unfortunately, the war on terrorism, conducted by President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and others since 9/11 in 2001, has violated all of these basic principles. The outcome has been disastrous. In what follows, I take eight such principles in turn, and indicate how they have been violated, and how and why this has had adverse consequences. I then put the problem of terrorism into the context of other, and in some cases more serious global problems such as global warming, nuclear proliferation, war and the threat of war, and raise the question of how humanity can learn to tackle these problems more effectively and intelligently than they are being tackled at present. If these problems are to be tackled democratically, a majority of people in democratic countries need to understand what the problems are and what needs to be done about them. This, in turn, requires a major programme of public education. I conclude by putting forward a proposal as to how this can be brought about